1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to transportation infrastructure generally, and more particularly, to methods and systems for vehicle-centric infrastructure monitoring and system optimization.
2. Discussion of Art
It is recognized in the transportation industry that it is desirable to acquire and analyze data regarding the condition of infrastructure, such as a railway infrastructure for example. Current systems for monitoring the condition of infrastructure are directed to one of two possible approaches. The first approach for monitoring the condition of the railway infrastructure involves collecting large amounts of data infrequently. That is, a specialized railway inspection vehicle is used to acquire track condition data during a single pass over a plurality of sections of the railway infrastructure. There are several drawbacks to such a manner for acquiring and analyzing data regarding the condition of railway infrastructure. First, given the large number of track miles and the relatively few inspection vehicles that a railway operator can afford, the time required to acquire and analyze data for the entire infrastructure (i.e., get 100% coverage) can be quite large. Additionally, as these inspection vehicles are typically slow traveling in order to acquire all data in a single pass, data acquisition can be even further prolonged.
An additional approach for monitoring the condition of the railway infrastructure involves acquiring and processing all information on an in service vehicle, such as a train, as it travels on the railway infrastructure. The train acquires track condition data during a single pass as it traverses portions of the railway infrastructure and analyzes the data in near real-time to thus assess the condition of that part of the railway infrastructure. As the train only acquires data in a single pass and analyzes the data thereon, data regarding the condition of the railway infrastructure is thus again limited to a single acquisition of data.
As data on the condition of the railway infrastructure would ideally be acquired and analyzed on a regular basis, such that the condition of the railway infrastructure can be updated on a regular basis and be as current as possible, it is desirable that data on the condition of the railway infrastructure be obtained more frequently. As set forth above, given the large number of track miles and the overall size of the railway infrastructure, the time required to acquire and analyze data for the entire infrastructure via the single pass methods described above can be quite large. Furthermore, due to time and cost constraints of data acquisition and data communication bandwidth, railroads are precluded from having a more frequent assessment of infrastructure/asset condition via such single-pass methods.
It would therefore be desirable to have a system and method capable of acquiring and analyzing data regarding the condition of the railway infrastructure in a more efficient manner. It would further be desirable for such a system and method to acquire the data on a more frequent basis and by way of multiple passes and analyze the data acquired in each pass to determine an updated condition of the railway infrastructure. Also, to achieve more frequent inspection by a large number of inspection systems, it would be further desirable to have the system be of low cost